Geometry Meets the World of Making

Over
the last few years, Assistant Professor of Interior Architecture Eduardo Benamor
Duarte has drawn on his
experience as an architect and his passion for geometry to experiment with various
manufacturing methods and the mathematical process of form-making. In his
native Portugal, collaborations with the cork industry and metallurgical
companies yielded new personal works, along with breakthroughs within these
industries.

More
recently Duarte has been pursuing experiments involving geometric ceramic blocks
– or more specifically, porcelain octahedral polygons. Last year, when he was
working part-time at RISD, he submitted a proposal for a PTFA [Part-Time
Faculty Association] Fund Grant to make a new body of work based on what he
calls Fijiji blocks. Not a static
stacking system like Lego, Fijiji blocks
have 16 different faces that can connect in 16 different ways, providing huge
variations in how they can be combined.

“Although
ceramics has a long tradition in Portugal, it’s a new field I hadn’t explored
before,” Duarte says. “I thought maybe I would be interested in porcelain
casting methods, which would allow more complex formal variation.”

Fortunately,
Duarte turned to Larry Bush, an associate professor of Ceramics, for help in
realizing his idea. “Larry showed me his work with blocks – with intricate
systems – and it seemed like a beautiful opportunity to learn more, to create a
synergy with technology and with someone whose knowledge was so much further
developed,” he says.

With
the support of Ceramics Department Head Katy Schimert, who offered her colleagues use of the Metcalf
plaster room for developing prototypes, the project quickly became an
inter-departmental collaboration. “The final shape of the blocks is 85% of what
I’d designed on the computer,” Duarte says. “But the other 15% is extremely
important, and it relates to Larry’s knowledge of what needed to change to make
it happen. It’s an example of what happens when geometry encounters the world
of making.”

With
assistance from Judith Kollo MFA 12 CR, Bush and Duarte initially worked
out an 18-part mold last fall, engaging in a series of discussions and
experiments about the shape of the mold and how it would release after casting.
By Wintersession they had altered the design enough that it became a two-part
mold, which is when Kelli Adams
MFA 09 CR got involved and took on
the challenge of constructing the mold and slipcasting the blocks before they
were fired at RISD. The team cast and fired 84 blocks during spring semester –
just in time for Fijijiblocks to debut at the Wanted Design
event held in New York City in conjunction with the 2012
International Contemporary Furniture Fair.

“It
was fascinating and challenging,” says Duarte. “One day the blocks were coming
out of the kiln, and the next day we were installing them in New York. There
was no time for testing all the connectivity, but the system worked fine.”

As
for future prospects for Fijiji blocks,
Duarte says: “It’s a serious project, and my goal is that it will expand. The
beauty is that they don’t have an assigned purpose. They seem fragile, but
they’re not. They’re brick-like, but they’re lighter than brick. They’re
three-dimensional building blocks that constitute an environment wherever
they’re installed – in an outdoor space, covered in plants; as wall dividers in
an interior space; as loose blocks attached to an outdoor wall. We now have
four molds, but if we expand to 10 or 20, we can make hundreds of blocks to
make new spatial environments.”